By David Booth, Postmedia News

Originally published: August 8, 2013

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SHANNONVILLE, ONT. — The gap between topflight motorcycle roadracers and the rest of we Walter Mittys is as wide and unfathomable as anything in the sporting world. Besides sheer God-given talent, the successful bike jockey needs the bravery to hold a throttle open way past the limits of common sense, the ability to feel traction when just six or eight square inches of rubber are touching the tarmac and the fitness to do it all at 100% of your abilities for 45 surprisingly exhaustive minutes.

To that list of rare attributes required to excel at one of the most dangerous sports on earth, I will now add adaptability, as in the ability to quickly rewire your senses, reactions and thought process so you can adapt to motorcycles that, though, they would seem to share the same general attributes — i.e. wheels at either end, an engine in between, and a throttle in your right hand — are so different as to require thorough reworking of the synapses.

This hasn’t been a problem in most of my previous motorcycle track shootouts, because most have involved mainstream sportbikes so similar that they were interchangeable. Not so for the Europe’s three “middleweight” contenders, Ducati’s 848 EVO Corse SE, MV Agusta’s 675 F3 and Triumph’s Daytona 675R. Though they are from the same continent and are of roughly the same performance with similar weights and horsepower, they are as different as night and day. Hell, two are so identical in spec and concept — the MV and the Triumph are the industry’s only 675-cc triples — their weight, wheelbase and overall length sufficiently similar that one would have thought that familiarizing oneself with one would provide some insight into the other.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Similar in theory, diametrically opposite in execution, the Triumph and the MV have about as much in common as, well, England and Italy. The Triumph, like all good Englishmen, is all politeness and good manners while the MV is brio and passion incarnate. The big surprise, though, is which of those attributes works best on the track. Or, at least, on this track.

The Triumph 675R ($14,599) is the more mainstream commodity. Oh, this year sees a new engine with bigger 76-millimetre bore and shorter 49.6-mm stroke (both attributes that increase power and revability) and the R adds Ohlins suspension front and rear as well as a quick-shifter. But its mien remains the same. It remains an incredibly easy bike to ride fast. Unfettered by traction control adjustments — increasingly common functions on sportbikes including the two Italians in this test — the Triumph requires little setup. Indeed, unlike the MV, which we futzed with repeatedly, none of our testers altered a single thing about the Triumph; it was quite literally a turn-the-key-and-ride experience. The steering was impeccable, the suspension compliant (important since Shannonville’s pockmarked pavement can feel like a goat path) and the brakes extremely powerful. The Daytona’s chassis does nothing spectacularly, but in doing absolutely nothing wrong, it is by far the most user-friendly of this trio.

That’s also true of the engine, which, as Triumph intended, is now as powerful as the more common Japanese 600-cc fours. Indeed, the now more highly tuned 2013 675 revs higher (the redline is up 500 rpm) and harder (there are three more horsepower for 2013, for a total of 126), but its basic good-nature remains unaltered. Unlike its Asian competition, the Triumph doesn’t really care what gear it’s in; as long as the rev counter is somewhere between 6,000 and 13,000 rpm, it’s good to go. Combined with its near-perfect fuel-mapping, the engine is so incredibly easy to modulate that it makes heroes of even the Walter Mittiest of riders (that would be Yours Truly). That might not sound like much of an advantage, especially on a racetrack.

That’s until you jump on the MV Agusta F3 675 (surprisingly affordable, by the way, at $14,995). Appreciably more manic, the MV reacts to twists of the wrist like the ECU has been mainlining crystal meth. The throttle feels like it takes only 10 degrees to yank open and response is so immediate that it initially feels stronger than the Triumph (though both engines are rated at 126-hp). And, indeed, in the upper reaches of its powerband (the F3 reaches its power peak at a stratospheric 14,400 rpm, especially heady for a three-cylinder engine and 1,900 rpm higher than the Triumph), the MV feels more powerful than the Triumph, the front wheel getting light in the first three gears as the engine screams past 10,000 rpm. If the sensation of speed were the determiner of this test (and, for many, the sensation of speed is indeed more important than its reality), the F3 would be the winner of this contest, hands down.

The problem is putting all that power to the ground. Or, more accurately, for riders as ham-fisted as I to put all that power to the ground. Like a few other MVs, the F3’s throttle requires a sensitive touch, making holding neutral throttle a little jerky. When, you’re hard on or off the gas, the MV is pure internal combustion happiness, but trying to hold a steady throttle through a long double apex corner (Shannonville has two particularly diabolical examples of such apex interruptus) and the slightest twitch of your right wrist causes the engine to hunt. I solved the problem by changing to the 675’s high-tech “custom” throttle map and combining the softer “rain” mode with the most liberal traction control setting. Yes, it chopped a bit of the MV’s low-end power, but it cured all the low rpm bumbles and made the 675 imminently more rideable.

The rest of the MV requires similar finesse. The chassis is responsive but twitchy. The brakes are staggeringly powerful, but again very sensitive. Ditto the suspension, which is set up firmly for the typically glass-smooth European circuits and not for the cow-trail masquerading as a racetrack that is Shannonville. At a newer, smoother and more wide open track like Ontario’s Calabogie Motorsports Park, I suspect the MV would be a rocket.

If the MV is the new kid on the block, then Ducati’s 848 Corse ($16,495) is definitely the aging master. For one thing, its handling is definitely old school. Not nearly as quick steering as the Triumph and the hyperactive MV, the Ducati sacrifices quick steering for stability and immediate response for calm. Though it is not significantly larger than the two triples, it feels like a much longer and heavier bike than either of the 675s.

That makes it handful when you’re trying to flick from full lean in one direction to the same bank angle in the other in the 20 metres that Shannonville calls a straightaway between turns six and seven. At a high-speed track such as Mosport, on the other hand, that stability would be a godsend. Nonetheless, at Shannonville, the 848 requires manhandling; try to delicately guide it through tight turns and its resists, but smack it around a little and it bends to your will with grace and speed.

The engine is more of a surprise. It is, of course, Ducati’s trademark 90-degree V-twin, but unlike most Dukes, it loves to rev. Oh, there’s a lot of the V-twin’s characteristic low-end torque, but unlike bigger Ducatis (the new Panigale being the exception) it needs to be thrashed to make serious haste. It also enjoys a significant displacement advantage (849-cc versus 675, though, through the vagaries of modern racing rules, all three are eligible for the “middleweight” racing classes along with 600-cc fours) so it’s the most powerful of the trio, its 140 claimed horsepower 14 more than the MV and Triumph. On a big wide-open track (again, like Mosport), I suspect the Duke would romp away from the others, its power giving it an advantage on the straights and its imperturbability giving the rider the confidence to charge into Mosport’s high-speed turns.

None of which changes, however, that on this day, at this track, the Triumph Daytona 675R was the best bike. It offers no complicated electronic adjustments because, well, it doesn’t need any. Its most important attribute is that it instilled confidence in all three of our test riders and, when you’re long on enthusiasm but short on talent, that’s the most important quality a motorcycle can have.